


All Paths Lead

by moonside



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, M/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Spoilers for Endgame, Time Travel Fix-It, because this canon makes no sense, endgame fix it fic, steve rogers is an idiot, the happy ending they deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 10:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18618388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonside/pseuds/moonside
Summary: “I wanna tell you to come back tomorrow,” Bucky says, after a long silence, “but Stevie, fuck, you know I can’t ever tell you what to do, I can only follow.”“Can’t follow me where I’m goin’, though,” Steve mumbles, “not this time.”---**SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME**





	All Paths Lead

Peggy Carter is in his mind, and Steve Rogers feels awful for it. He feels miserable and stupid, and it’s like ripping the bandaid off an old wound, stinging and burning and hurting. Steve thought he was over this; he thought he’d moved on. There’s a lotta things he’ll never move on from, though, and he guesses this is one of them.

 

“Y’know,” Bucky says quietly, behind him, “it’s okay. To miss her, Stevie. You’ve always had way too big of a heart.”

 

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” Steve asks softly. He inclines his head slightly, but he doesn’t move from his spot, hunched over the edge of the bed.

 

“Shouldn’t you?” Bucky counters back.

 

It’s strange, hearing his best friend’s voice, after all these years. It’s been five fucking years, and Steve can’t reconcile that, as much as he’s trying to. It’s been five goddamn years of being alone, five years of trying to hold it together. It’s been five years lost, and he knows how much it’s weighing heavily on Bucky’s chest, that they were pulled apart again. _Were._ God, he hates himself.

 

Steve hates the ugly feeling rising in his own chest, because fuck, he needs to be here for Bucky. His best friend has lost time again, has to live with all that guilt. Half the goddamn world lives with a guilt, with the heaviness of being left out of time—and Steve Rogers understands that.

 

Still. He misses Peggy, and in a way he thought he’d buried so long ago. He feels torn in two directions, and somehow, it feels just like being in the forties again. It feels the way he felt every time his gaze was drawn from Bucky, to Peggy, and then back again. His heart is aching, thrumming, ready to burst. It feels like they’ve just  deiced him again; like he’s a man out of another time, and suddenly, there’s a world of _what ifs_ that just opened.

 

“Go back to bed, Buck,” Steve says thickly.

 

The bed shifts behind him, and Steve feels every minute motion of his best friend. It’s no surprise, when Bucky’s arms wrap tightly around him. It’s a revelation, a little shock of warmth, because god, Steve’s missed this. Five goddamn years, and he can’t get his head out of the past, can he?

 

“Come back to bed,” Bucky counters, “Steven Grant Rogers, you think I don’t know what this idiot mind of yours is thinkin’? After all this time?”

 

Steve can hear Bucky’s heart breaking, with the words, but he lets himself be pulled back. He lets Bucky tug him down onto the mattress – too soft, suddenly it feels too soft all over again, like they’ve just pulled him out of the ice – and his fingers automatically shift to Bucky’s hair, to stroke through the long, tangled strands.

 

“Five years,” Steve says softly, “… one hell of a welcome I’m givin’ ya, huh?”

 

Bucky laughs quietly, the puff of hot air warm against Steve’s chest, the raw ache visceral, something that cuts through Steve’s ribs, wraps around his heart and yanks. “The welcome back sex was great, Stevie, I dunno what you mean.”

 

He’s joking, though. James Buchanan Barnes has always had that sharp wit that pushes everything else aside, and Steve feels like they’re back in Brooklyn. He knows they aren’t. He knows they left Brooklyn behind a damn long time ago, and they don’t have to, now. They could go home. He could retire. He can retire, but…

 

“You know what this idiot mind is thinkin’,” Steve echoes his own words back at Bucky.

 

There’s a moment of silence, a hitch in Bucky’s breath, and he shifts, buries his face in Steve’s chest. At some point, the heat turns into wet, bitter tears, and they’re both gonna pretend that Bucky isn’t crying. As Steve tips his head back, closes his eyes, he feels the harsh wetness prick at the corner of his eyes as well.

 

“I wanna tell you to come back tomorrow,” Bucky says, after a long silence, “but Stevie, fuck, you know I can’t ever tell you what to do, I can only follow.”

 

“Can’t follow me where I’m goin’, though,” Steve mumbles, “not this time.”

 

“I can’t change your mind, can I?” Bucky asks, quiet and resigned. He knows. Steve can hear the anger in the words, can hear the finality of speaking it aloud, and they both know.

 

“Buck,” Steve breathes out. He keeps his eyes closed, because if he opens them, he’s gonna crack. He’ll fall to pieces under the weight of the grief, under the fact that here is Steven Grant Rogers, yet again, failing Bucky Barnes. In the end - that’s his legacy, isn’t it?

 

Bucky doesn’t want an answer; doesn’t wait for one. He knows.

 

“Am I…?” Bucky starts to say, but the words die on his tongue, and instead, a tight, choked sound comes out. Fuck. “... you’re an idiot, Steve. Always have been. I would’ve stayed for you, y’know. I would’ve-- Brooklyn-- we could’ve-- this never could’ve happened, y’know? I would’ve done _anything_ for you, Stevie--”

 

“But you got drafted, Buck. It _happened,_ and I can go back, I can save _both_ of us--” Steve tries to say, and the words die on his tongue as they come out, because by speaking it, by confessing, he knows he’s letting Bucky down. He’s letting him down, but this timeline is so fucking twisted and torn into pieces. This Steve, this Bucky, they’ve been to the end of the line, they’ve been _here,_ trying to put back together something that the world has shattered. Hydra, Shield, the Accords, the whole world’s against them. Maybe it’s just time to stop fighting, and that’s a concept that Steve Rogers just-- he doesn’t understand.

 

“I don’t know myself anymore, Buck,” Steve confesses, another heartbeat lying between them, a few more pumps of super-soldier blood, a heartbreak audible in the air with the thrum of their beating hearts. “... five years is a lot, and I just. I don’t _know_ anymore.”

 

Bucky doesn’t speak; Steve thinks he might pull away. His fingers trace down the knobs of Bucky’s spine, fingers mapping out old scars, reverent, soft, _worshipping._ Steve wishes he could put it to words. He loves Bucky - always has, always will, but if there’s some world where they can be _happy,_ where he can see Peggy, where he can save _Bucky…_ he wants that world. He needs to see it, because Steve Rogers is just so goddamn tired and he can’t do this anymore.

 

“I would’ve run away with ya, Stevie,” Bucky says finally. “Who fuckin’ cares I was drafted?! The war was _your_ battle, I’ve just been chasin’ after you always, keepin’ ya out of trouble--”

 

“And that’s why I gotta go,” Steve interrupts him, suddenly, and that’s when the tears come. That’s when, finally, after _everything,_ Steve breaks down. He’s sobbing, long and ugly and hard, five years of grief, of separation, seventy years of ice and Hydra brainwash and a whole entire _galaxy_ of suffering between them.

 

He can’t fix this; he never has. And if Steve asks Bucky, they’ll be thinking two different thoughts that both lead to the same place: the end of the line.

 

\---

 

They don’t talk about it again. At some point, they drift off, uneasy and exhausted. It’s not the reunion that Steve Rogers expected. He shouldn’t have gone back to the 70s and seen Peggy, but he’d had no choice, and he knows it. He shouldn’t have looked. The Steve Rogers from five years ago wouldn’t have--but then, it’s been a long time.

 

Some doors? They’re not meant to be open, but now that this one is, Steve Rogers can’t help but want to burst it off its hinges and barrel forward, consequences be fucking damned.

 

Bucky looks gorgeous, all bathed in golden sunlight, as they both dress in black.

 

“I never got to tell him,” Bucky says quietly, over breakfast. He looks up at Steve, and there’s an emptiness there, a darkness that swirls that reminds Steve, ever-so-briefly, of the hellicarrier, of DC, a whole fucking lifetime ago. “Stark. Tony. I—”

 

“He knew,” Steve replies softly. They’re super-soldiers, they need to eat, but they’re both picking at their food. This isn’t what he intended. He should be happy to have Bucky back. He’d give anything for Wakanda again—for those sun-kissed days of bliss. Figures, the days he was on the run, an international fugitive, they’d been the best years of Steve’s life. Nat and Sam by his side; Bucky his _home,_ his compass, a tangible home for his heart, instead of the compass he’s been turning in his palm for the past five years. But he’d had to go back, and now his mind’s a mess, and he has to—

 

“Did he?” Bucky frowns, and he picks at his food. “Steve. I—”

 

“You have Sam,” Steve says. “And you’ll have me. You always have me. You’re a good man, Buck. Always have been.”

 

Maybe, and Steve doesn’t voice this part, but maybe, it’s time for James Buchanan Barnes to stop chasing him, for him to become his own man. Steve’s engrained himself into Bucky’s life from the beginning, forced him to fight all his goddamn battles. Steven Grant Rogers has always started battles he can’t finish, and Bucky’s always been the one to have to take his place.

 

“Sam should have the shield,” Bucky says, in response, and he knows, they both know, even if they’re not saying it. Bucky can’t keep chasing after Steve—they both need to live, and they both need to figure out what the hell actually living is.

 

They have different ideas of what that is, but Bucky’s always been way too good for Steve. Bucky will always break himself all over again for him, and Steve knows it.

 

\---

 

Five seconds.

 

Bucky knows, already, that Steve isn’t gonna come back.

 

“I need time,” Steve says in a whisper, as they stand together, before the platform. It had been a gorgeous funeral, and Bucky Barnes can only hope that Steve’s right, that he’s somehow begun to earn his redemption. “You need time, too, Buck. You gotta go without me, you gotta figure it out.”

 

“Isn’t that what Wakanda was for, Stevie?” Bucky teases, as light as he can.

 

Steve laughs, and for a moment, Bucky’s reminded so ferociously of that dumb kid from Brooklyn, all skinny, knobby knees and too-big hands. He’s still that kid, sometimes, and Bucky will never forget that. He wants to close his eyes, to look away, to stop staring, because staring at Steven Grant Rogers like this? It hurts too goddamn much.

 

“Wakanda was for us,” Steve lowers his voice, and he leans in. Behind them, Bruce and Sam are looking away; they know, this moment is theirs. This is for them. Their lips brush, and Bucky can’t close his eyes. He can’t look away – Steve’s hair shines bright in the sunshine. Steve looks so much older, and Bucky swears, there’s the beginning streaks of grey, even with the serum. Those five years, they changed Steve Rogers, and he needs to find himself again.

 

Suddenly – it all makes sense. It’s been a blink of an eye for Steve, but Bucky’s suspended in time. Yesterday, for Bucky, he was one-armed and streaked in dirt, waving at Steve as he landed his quinjet, rushed to Bucky’s side, pulled him in for a kiss.

 

The Steve Rogers who stares back at him, as he draws back, as their lips part, has spent five years running support groups, has spent five years drawing in on himself. Bucky doesn’t know if he knows this Steve anymore, and he knows he has to let Steve do this. He knows, because otherwise, he’s only a shell of a man.

 

“Do what you gotta do. But you don’t come back, punk, and I’m chasing you down,” Bucky says, instead. “Promise me that, Stevie, promise.”

 

Steve’s eyes soften, and then they harden, in the blink of an eye. In the span of seconds. Five seconds.

 

“I won’t make a promise I can’t keep, Buck. You know that,” Steve replies, and he draws back, lets Bruce make the adjustments. Bucky lets him have his distance, but it feels like his heart is breaking.

 

There’s millions of lifetimes, timelines, outcomes, and in every single one of them, Steven Grant Rogers has always picked him. But this is the reality where things changed, where everything went tilted, and Bucky thinks he’s somehow landed in the one where it’s not him.

 

Five seconds, and Steve is gone.

 

\---

 

“He wants you,” Sam says, though, nodding in the direction of the old man -  Steve, fuck, Steve - on the bench. Sam is holding the shield, and Bucky can’t help but smile, even if his heart is breaking.

 

He’s glad it was Sam. Bucky doesn’t want that mantle; he’ll stick by Sam’s side now, because they’re the only two left who understand what a good man Steven Grant Rogers is. They’re the only ones who know stupid, stubborn Steve, the one who smiles so bright it lights up his whole being. The Steve who throws his head back and laughs, when he lets his guard down, with his cheeks scrunched up and his eyes closing. God, and for Bucky, it’s been days. It’s been goddamn days, and now that’s Steve, a whole lifetime away—

 

“Hey,” Bucky says, and he sits down on the bench. He keeps his eyes downcast, because somehow, he’s a coward. He doesn’t want to see Steve like this. We’re supposed to grow old together, he thinks, desperately. Instead, Steve aged five goddamn years without him, and now he’s a whole lifetime away.

 

His eyes focus on the ring on Steve’s finger, and Bucky hates everything a little more. He loves Steve Rogers, he’s always said that Peggy’s way better for him, but it hurts, knowing, that Steve finally chose. He chose, and what the hell does that mean for them, for everything they are?

 

“Bucky,” Steve says, and his voice, god, it still sounds almost the same. It aches, and Bucky doesn’t know how he’s going to do this, how he’s going to survive.

 

“Been a long time for you, huh, Stevie?” Bucky tries to keep it together. It’s been minutes for him, but already, he feels like he’s dying. Already, he has to wonder how much goddamn progress he even made at all? Wakanda was supposed to fix him, but all it did was give him a home, all it did was bring him Steve. All it did was give them a taste of life together.

 

“Don’t be so sure of that,” Steve says mildly, in that way that he does, and Bucky’s eyes burn. He doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t want to hope, doesn’t want to think.

 

“Did you know,” Steve continues, “time travel is complicated. Not supposed to run into yourself, for one.”

 

Bucky keeps his gaze focused on the ring on Steve’s finger. It shines gold in the sun; it reminds Bucky of Steve’s bright, gold-spun hair, glinting just minutes ago – but now that’s gone, turned to ash with age, just like the Steve he loved. Loves. No, that’s not true. No matter the timeline, no matter the outcome, no matter what resolution, he’ll never stop loving Steve, and this is no different. Bucky’s choice? It’ll never be any different.

 

“Didn’t you fuck that one up?” Bucky can grin, at least, about that. He’d been given enough time to hear it all, to hear all about Steve fighting himself, and Steve had at least been animated enough to groan, “I can do this all day, Buck, I really said that, can you imagine?!”

 

Yes. Yes he can imagine, and it still makes Bucky laugh, even though his heart is breaking.

 

“Yep,” Steve says, and even in his goddamn old age, he pops the ‘p’ with such a smug sound, Bucky wants to reach over and strangle him. Elder abuse is a thing, he reminds himself, and why the hell is everything involving Steve both so heartbreaking and so endearing and still so familiar?

 

“This is weird,” Bucky confesses. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands; they’re shoved in his pockets. He’d kept them there during the funeral, out of respect, but now he tugs his flesh one out, tentatively reaching in the distance between them--

 

Steve’s grip is still _strong,_ even if his skin is thinner, papery and lined with spots and spidery veins. It makes Bucky’s heart skip a few beats, makes him swallow down another one of those awful, shuddery sounds that exposes him.

 

“I didn’t age well,” Steve agrees, with a laugh, and even like this, his brow crinkles. There are deep lines set in his forehead, Bucky realizes-- the life of a man who’s smiled a lot, who’s _laughed_ a lot. A different Steve Rogers. Bucky hates it, because his heart aches, but at the same time, that’s all he’s ever wanted for Steve, huh?

 

“Did you find her? What you were looking for?” Bucky asks quietly, and he doesn’t know if he wants the answer.

 

Steve’s lips quirk. The deeply-set wrinkles at the corner of his mouth hollow out his face.

 

“I found _us,”_ he says, and he emphasizes the word, eyes wide, searching, as their gazes finally meet. And even though it’s weird, even though this Steve Rogers has a whole lifetime of experience on him, all over again--it’s still Steve down there. Bucky would recognize that look anywhere, and he wants to sob. He’s barely holding on.

 

Bucky’s shoulders shake, and Steve doesn’t look away. He doesn’t comment on it, simply lets things hang between them the way they should.

 

“Were you happy?” Bucky finally asks, the silence ticking down. The sun is so bright, and everything hurts. This feels like goodbye, and Bucky knows that, most likely, it is. He wants to hate Steve, but he can’t, he never will.

 

“ _We_ were happy,” Steve corrects, immediately. “You. Me. Pegs.”

 

Bucky’s heart catches, and he doesn’t know how to feel.

 

“So you found me,” he breathes out, and _god,_ isn’t that a thing, isn’t that the weirdest fucking thing in the whole world? He feels himself drifting; Bucky feels the heat of the sun on his face, feels Steve’s hand, so delicate in his, an anchor. Still-strong fingers squeeze and tighten, grounding him.

 

“I found both of us, actually,” Steve says quietly. “... y’know, though. Changing things, small details, it… changes bigger things. We never found my shield. S’why I thought I should-- I promised, after all. It’s Sam’s.”

 

Steve nods his head behind them, where Sam and Bruce are quietly watching, far enough to give them their space, their distance. Bucky appreciates the discretion, but god, knowing that other people are _watching_ his heart be stomped into a thousand pieces-- it hurts. He’s sick of everyone _watching_ him melt down, watching his life be torn down before him again and again. It really _is_ Wakanda all over again. It’s like being back on that examining table in Shuri’s lab, ready to be pulled away from Steve, only this time, the decision wasn’t Bucky’s.

 

“I miss you already, Stevie,” Bucky’s breath catches, his voice breaks, and he feels raw, burned down to ash and gore and visceral, skeletal remains. That’s all he is, without Steve Rogers. And here’s Steve-- telling him that in some universe, in some other timeline, the _three_ of them got their happy ending. But what about him? What about the James Buchanan Barnes who became the Winter Soldier? Who the hell _is_ Bucky?

 

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Steve tips his head. “I found _both_ of us, Buck.”

 

Bucky doesn’t understand. He shakes his head, and he closes his eyes.

 

“When I returned the timestone, I got one hell of a lecture.” Bucky doesn’t need to see Steve’s face to hear the amusement in the words. Steve’s got that mildly innocent look on his face, he knows in his bones, the one that he used to get when he’d start to tell a really ridiculous story. Back in Brooklyn, it’d be when their little cots were pushed too-close, when Stevie was telling about how he’d managed to barter for some treat they couldn’t afford. In Wakanda, it’d be when they’re both slick with sweat and semen, or when Nat and Sam sit with them around the fire pit burning outside their little farmhouse.

 

Steve Rogers has changed--but he _never_ changes.

 

“What are you sayin’, Stevie?” Bucky asks, though, because he can’t handle a story; he can’t sit here, at the end of the line, listening to Steve break his heart even deeper.

 

Steve’s fingers are still so strong, as they trace over Bucky’s younger, warmer one. His _human_ hand, because Steve’s always been his humanity, fragile and twisted and so stupidly egotistical that he is.

 

“She told me that if I’m willin’ to pull myself out of the ice, I better make sure the shield gets back to where it belongs. Told me to stop pickin’ fights with myself,” Steve laughs at that. “Like that lady. She’s nice.”

 

“I don’t get it,” Bucky says, “you came back for what? To say goodbye? To give Sam the shield? Steve, you’re gettin’ awful senile in your old age--”

 

“I came back,” Steve says, interrupting him before Bucky can go on a rant, “to tell you not to panic when I don’t come back right away. Because you panic, Buck, and you lose yourself without me. I told you, take some _time._ You’ve always been my other half, ‘n you don’t know what to do without me. That ain’t fair, Buck, it’s never been fair.”

 

Steve’s accent comes out thick, and Bucky wants to ask a million things. Did they go back to Brooklyn? What’s it like, being with Peggy, saving _him,_ this other world where none of the bad happened? Is he less broken? Can he give Steve everything he couldn't, here, now? Does it matter, though? Bucky’s stuck here.

 

“I got pulled out of the ice,” Steve says, “he, I, _we,_ made sure of it. Peggy got me. She got you, too. I just, the shield-- be _patient,_ Buck, because I think I’m still out there, somewhere. I gotta go home, Peg’s still-- _you’re_ still-- but… promise me. Nothin’ stupid?”

 

Bucky feels his heart thump wildly against his ribs, and through the grief, he thinks he’s beginning to understand. He thinks he gets it, and Steven fucking Grant fucking Rogers is the biggest goddamn idiot in the whole fuckin’ world. And that, of course, is why he places his trust in him, wholeheartedly. And that’s why the end of the line is a concept, an idea, and never a place. It’s not here.

 

“You always take the stupid with ya. None left for me,” Bucky agrees, quietly.

 

\---

 

He and Sam linger a while. It’s their duty, after all, as Steve Rogers’ best friends, to help clean up his mess. They pack his stuff, because Steve left it behind. Sam’s a new man, with the shield strapped to his back, and it makes Bucky smile. Sam deserves to take up that mantle, and Bucky’s glad it’s him.

 

It’s a few weeks, when they finally decide to leave.

 

“You’re comin’ with me,” Sam had said, when they’d started to discuss it, and Bucky’s grateful. Wakanda would take him back-- Shuri had blurted it out, and the withering look from her brother had broken through Bucky’s haze, had made him laugh full and whole-heartedly. The idea of going back there, though, to the home he’d built with Steve over five years, it’s just… it’s too much to take.

 

“Is that a good idea?” Bucky had started to ask, but Sam had only stared him down.

 

“We don’t all got super powers. I’m just a man. Gonna need me some reliable backup,” Sam had said, and that was that.

 

Still, Bucky’s lingering. He doesn’t want to leave. Pepper has been more than accommodating, and Bucky knows that she welcomes the company. She never had it in her to hate Bucky, not the way Tony Stark did, but she’s reassured Bucky a thousand times that the WInter Soldier was never her fight, and that her husband never _did_ know how to make peace with people, not until it’s too late.

 

“I’m gonna,” Bucky still says, when it’s time to go, and he nods in the direction of the quantum portal. They'd left it here; said that it’s time to leave the _past_ where it is, that they don’t need to mess with shit anymore. And maybe Sam has his suspicions, because he gives Bucky a long, scrutinizing gaze, before nodding.

 

“I’ll finish packin’ up. Don’t… beat yourself up over this, Barnes, don’t keep doin’ that,” Sam says, finally.

 

Bucky’s feet carry him automatically, though, and suddenly he’s sitting at the bench by the lake. Suddenly, he’s still three weeks in the past; he doesn’t need the quantum realm or a time machine to live in the past, because the vision of his best friend -- his lover, the _only_ person who’s ever gazed fully into his soul -- is etched here forever. Steve hadn’t stayed long. He’d had somewhere else to be, he’d said, and he’d disappeared, the shield and the hole in Bucky’s heart the only indicator.

 

And a _promise._ Be patient. Well, Bucky’s spent most of his life being an assassin. A reluctant one, but a goddamn good one, the best, and patience is as deeply embedded in his soul as Steve’s existence is. He’ll hold on to that, at least.

 

Sam gives him time, and Bucky appreciates it. The man doesn’t follow after him, even as the hours tick down, as the sun begins to set in the sky.

 

It’s sunset, when Bucky hears a strange sound -- when he hears the _whir_ of the quantum portal, when he hears the sound of displaced air. His breath catches in his lungs; he doesn’t know how to breathe, how to _think,_ how to do much of anything. And he’s scared as hell to turn around, to see that it’s nothing, that the squirrels just hit a lever (and god, that’s dangerous, right?)

 

But there’s something frantic stabbing Bucky in the chest. There’s a sensation building, something that aches and burns and twists at him like a knife. Bucky knows this feeling, and he knows that when it’s stamped out, it’ll kill him. It’s terrifying and exhilarating, and he rises to his feet, ready to turn around and face whatever’s going on behind him.

 

It’s _hope._

 

\---

 

Peggy’s a bit harder to track down than Steve expected her to be, but then again, Peggy Carter’s never made anything easy for him.

 

Her eyes are wide and wet, though, as she opens the door. “Steve?! I-- what-- _you’re alive?”_

 

She pulls Steve into her arms, though, and he lifts her up, spins her around and _kisses_ her, and Steve Rogers feels the world fall into place, because he _knows._

 

The music wafts around them as they dance, as they spin together. He’s never been a good dancer. Bucky’s tried, again and again, to teach him, but the movements still feel stiff and wooden. He doesn’t step on her feet, at least; there’s the ghost of a smile on Peggy’s lips as she presses her cheek into his chest. They dance for a song, and then another, and then a third.

 

At the end of the third dance, Peggy lifts up, tips her head back, and meets Steve’s gaze.

 

“You’re so much older,” she comments, quietly. “The things you must have seen, Steve Rogers.”

 

“If only you knew, Pegs,” Steve says, and that’s barely even the beginning of it.

 

Peggy laughs. “I’d tell you that we have the rest of our lives to catch up, but we don’t, do we?”

 

Steve loves Peggy. He loves how she sees right through him, in a way that only one other person in the whole goddamn universe, in all of space and time, ever will. And it’s been _ages._ Returning the stones--it’d taken so long, in this small window of space. It’s been a lifetime of journeys, Vormir and Asgard and earth, decades and twists and everything in between. He hasn’t seen Peggy smile in a lifetime, but somehow, there’s a different hole in Steve’s heart.

 

Somehow, this was the journey that he needs.

 

“I’m not here for long,” Steve confesses, “... you know how, sometimes, the things we need the most are the ones we take for granted?”

 

Peggy’s smile deepens, and she _knows._ “You’ve changed. You’ve got a different life now,” she agrees.

 

“Guess I do,” Steve says, “but I want to ask you something. I want to ask if you’ll find someone for me. A couple of people.”

 

“Of course,” Peggy confirms, without question.

 

Steve stays for a while, but he doesn’t leave until they’ve unearthed the wreckage of a plane in the arctic, until they’ve hunted down a previously undiscovered, hidden research facility deep in Austria, where they’re experimenting on prisoners of war. They haven’t found his shield yet, and so Steve leaves it--he has to, because they need it here, now. He’s giving them a future. He'll know when it needs to come back; he might take a while, but he always figures it out, in the end.

 

\---

 

Relief floods through Steve, when he steps back through the portal.

 

He feels _old,_ he feels worn down. He doesn’t know how much time has passed, but he’s exhausted. And more than anything, he feels _naked._

 

He’ll never get used to the quantum realm, and frankly, he doesn’t want to. So when he falls onto the platform, hands bracing himself, panting for breath, he doesn’t realize for a moment--

 

“Steve?”

 

Bucky’s standing there, staring at him, something wild in his eyes. There’s a myriad of emotions-- hope, rage, love, obsession, fear, grief, and more than anything, _relief._

 

Steve’s whole body trembles with deep exhaustion, and he swears, he’s never doing this again. He _can’t,_ anyway, because after all of this, he’s crushing the remainder of his Pym vial under his boot and he’s putting all of this behind him.  Because, finally, something in his chest has stopped aching.

 

“Sorry I’m late,” Steve says, and he lets the shame creep in. “Funny lady in New York lectured me, said I needed to stop bein’ in the same place at the same time. And, ya know, figured you’d probably be mad, that I should give you time so you don’t punch me--”

 

Bucky Barnes breaks the distance between them, and suddenly they’re _both_ moving. Steve’s forcing himself to move, forcing himself beyond the brink of exhaustion because he’s goddamn Captain America, shield or no shield. Except he’s not, because Sam’s got the shield, there’s a new Cap now, and he’s just Steve Rogers.

 

He’s Steve Rogers, five years later, worn down and exhausted, stubborn and dumb. He loves Peggy Carter, still, but he saw her and-- there’s a different timeline now, a different future for them. Maybe fate wants to thread three strings together, but it’s not these strings, and there’s a universe where they all get their happy ending.

 

But maybe, just maybe, the universe where they beat Thanos, where the odds were so heavily against them, but they’re _here, alive,_ this is the universe where he belongs.

 

“I’m home,” Steve says, as Bucky wraps him up in his arms, “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot, I had to see her again, and I _knew,_ Buck, it’s you, all paths lead back to you--”

 

“Idiot,” Bucky says, but he’s kissing him, rough and fast and hard, and there’s tears streaking both of their faces. There’s salt and wetness and so much _sorrow,_ but so much love, and Steve knows he made the right choice. “I’m going to punch you, y’know, and then I’m gonna kiss it better, Stevie, don’t you ever do that again-- you’re my _mission.”_

 

And Bucky is choking, and Steve is sobbing, but he made it back.

 

In another world, in another destiny, he’s changed the timeline. There’s some reality where this never happened--and Steve thinks, they deserve that. The universe owes them that. But here, now, there’s one in fourteen million, six hundred and five odds of getting here.

 

Steve likes those odds.

 

“I’m sorry. I’m _home,_ ” he repeats again, in Bucky’s arms, and when Bucky punches him, with the damn _metal_ fist, when it bursts into pain, to blossom into a stunning bruise a few minutes later, he deserves it. They’ve got a lifetime of that ahead of them, though, and Steve’s ready for it.

 

In his pocket, Steve still has the compass with Peggy’s picture, but he doesn’t need it now. Five years changed him, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. They got their chance and now it's time to start living.

**Author's Note:**

> endgame hurt me. endgame RUINED me. it's not even a ship thing, it's the fact that the russos, the writing team, kevin feige, MARVEL, took the steve rogers that we know and love, that we've followed from TFA, all the way to the end-- and after all that, he was done so horribly wrong in the final moments of his arc.
> 
> this is for the steve i know, the skinny little kid from brooklyn.
> 
> and this is for lane, the bucky barnes to my steven grant rogers. thanks for being my platonic soulmate. 
> 
> also, hi, i only write fic for broken canons that i'm angry about, so thanks MCU for finally giving me enough rage and passion to write. <3
> 
> (i'm on twitter @thatdest if you want to scream about endgame with me! i need more steve/bucky friends!!)


End file.
